How well does our system work? You can use the numerical index to check our blogs from the last big recession.
Much of the world suffered a severe recession from 2008 to 2011. During that time, we wrote more than 250 blogs using publicly available information and our Strategystreet system to project what would happen in various companies and industries who were living in those hostile environments. In 2022, we began to update each of these blogs to see what later took place and to check the quality of our conclusions. To date, we have completed the first 175 of our original blogs. You can use these updated blogs to see how well the Strategystreet system works.
The telephone industry has had its ups and downs over the last twenty years, but the wireless business has helped it survive nicely. Telephone customers are changing how they buy phone service. For the last several years, customers have been migrating away from land line phones to cell phones. Many of the under-35 set rely exclusively on cell phones for their phone service. The largest telephone companies, including AT&T and Verizon, solved the problem of the lost land line business by buying cell phone carriers and expanding the cell phone business. This move kept their…
Read MoreIn our terminology, a Price Leader product is a low-end competitor in the market place. It competes against both other Price Leader products and against Standard Leader products, which are the industry leading products. There are two types of Price Leader products. They differ from one another in the benefits they offer the user and the buyer of the product. The user and the buyer may be the same person but the activities of each create different needs. The first type of Price Leader, a Stripper product, offers both the user and the buyer of…
Read MoreA Leader’s Trap occurs when an industry leader, usually the first or second company ranked by market share, holds prices high in the face of declining industry prices. The industry leader expects that its customers will remain loyal despite lower cost competition. This decision is virtually certain to fail. Eventually, the industry leader will reduce its prices, but only after losing market share to the lower cost competitor. The North Lake Tahoe ski world is seeing the end of a Leader’s Trap. The world is about to get more interesting for skiers around this area.…
Read MoreFor the most part, the airline industry has been in overcapacity and hostile operating conditions since it was deregulated many years ago. During that time, the industry produced many pricing schemes and even more competitors. Over the last few years, the competitors have decreased, while the pricing schemes have burgeoned. Many competitors fell away as the industry learned the difficult lesson that all airfares have to be the same or customers will choose the lower cost airfare. TWA, Eastern and Pan American were major carriers who disappeared in intense price competition. Nor did this price…
Read MoreMany people in the United States have heard little of Tesco, but it is a great retailer. In fact, it is the fourth largest retailer in the world, following Wal-Mart, Carrefour and Home Depot. Tesco has about 30% of the total grocery sales in the U.K. There it operates with several different formats and price points. It has been very successful, both in the U.K. and in the several other countries in which it has operated. In late 2007, the company opened its first U.S. stores, called Fresh & Easy. There are now 114 of…
Read MoreGM has been a strong performer in the Chinese auto market. But their sales have hit a wall. In 2008, the Chinese automobile market was up 7%, but GM’s automobile sales were down 16%. GM is losing market share to the usual Japanese suspects, Toyota and Honda, who are aggressively expanding in China. But the company is also losing market share to the more expensive Audi and BMW models. What is behind this loss of market share? Two reasons seem apparent. First, GM’s problem with potential bankruptcy in the United States has scared away some…
Read MoreIt is essential to be clear about the business in which the company competes. Lack of a clear identification of the business customers, products and competitors leads to strategic missteps. This company carefully defined and separated its three businesses. Still, that was not enough to create an attractive business. This blog explains why. Posted 2/2/09 For years, Chico’s FAS grew rapidly by selling attractively priced, colorful clothes, to baby-boomer women. But the company began to stumble in 2006. Its growth slowed and its core customers migrated to other companies’ offerings. The company’s costs rose faster…
Read MoreIn most markets, the middle-tier Standard Leader product Price Point would grow somewhat faster than the market over a several-year period. There are occasions, however, where Performance Leader or Price Leader products outpace the growth of the industry Standard Leader products. This blog demonstrates this phenomenon and explains why this happens. Posted 1/26/08 No matter the pace of growth in a market, the key growth measures to watch are those of the various Price Points. Here is an example. The U.K., as the U.S., is in a recession. As a result of tougher times, customers…
Read MoreOver the years, Schwab has revealed itself to be a remarkable source of innovation. Here is one innovation that has succeeded for Schwab because it streamlined its participation in the business. It redefined the business of credit cards and how that business fit with its primary business. It made some changes and received the award of a more profitable and cost-effective innovation. Posted 12/18/08 Charles Schwab Corporation is introducing the Schwab Bank Invest First Visa Signature credit card. This no-annual-fee card offers an unusual set of benefits. First, it returns a 2% cash rebate…
Read MoreWhen you see a dominant industry leader struggle or fail, most of the time the fault lies with a change in formerly successful company policies. These new policies usually damage the Reliability of the leader’s relationship with its most important customers. We have seen the same thing before in other blogs. This blog illustrates this unfortunate principle. Posted 11/17/08 Nike, ever the innovator, has found a new way to build brand loyalty. It has created a web site, NikePlus.com, that connects runners around the world. This web site tracks a runner’s data and allows a…
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